Device Problems with Removable Hard Drives
If you get a yellow exclamation mark in windows 95 device manager under "Hard disk controllers",
and you are using one hard drive plus a Zip or Syquest drive, try editing the Windows/System.ini file.
Go to the [386Enh] section and add the following line:
REMOVABLEIDE=TRUE
Evidently, if you use a removable drive, Windows 95 does not recognize it as being
removable, so you have to tell it that it is.
Creating a Support Information Button
Creating a Support Information Button
Create or edit the OEMINFO.INI file in the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder
Enter or edit the lines,
[General]
Manufacturer=your favorite strings
Model=your favorite strings
[Support Information]
Line1="your favorite strings" (require double quotes)
Line2="your favorite strings>"
Line3="your favorite strings>"
etc.
Open System Properties dialog box, you'll see a Support Information button. Click on this will display the information you entered
Note from Bob: This can be extremely useful if you want to include support personnel and their phone numbers
Create or edit the OEMINFO.INI file in the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder
Enter or edit the lines,
[General]
Manufacturer=your favorite strings
Model=your favorite strings
[Support Information]
Line1="your favorite strings" (require double quotes)
Line2="your favorite strings>"
Line3="your favorite strings>"
etc.
Open System Properties dialog box, you'll see a Support Information button. Click on this will display the information you entered
Note from Bob: This can be extremely useful if you want to include support personnel and their phone numbers
Finding Files with Specific Text in Them
Finding Files with Specific Text in Them
To find all associations with any name/word that exists in your computer.
Click on Start button
Select find
Then Files and Folders
Go to the Advanced tab
Type in text in the "Containing text" field
This is helpful when you get an error message that tells you something can't be run because the file can't be found. You can find the file that is calling the "non-existent" thing.
To find all associations with any name/word that exists in your computer.
Click on Start button
Select find
Then Files and Folders
Go to the Advanced tab
Type in text in the "Containing text" field
This is helpful when you get an error message that tells you something can't be run because the file can't be found. You can find the file that is calling the "non-existent" thing.
Removing One Document File from START / DOCUMENTS
Removing One Document File from START / DOCUMENTS
To remove one document file on START - DOCUMENTS
Run Explorer
Go to Windows directory
Select View and then Options
Select View Tab
Select show all files and then OK
Back to Windows Directory
Select Recent Folder
Delete the File you want to remove or display on Documents Folder
To remove one document file on START - DOCUMENTS
Run Explorer
Go to Windows directory
Select View and then Options
Select View Tab
Select show all files and then OK
Back to Windows Directory
Select Recent Folder
Delete the File you want to remove or display on Documents Folder
Fixing VMM32 Memory Leak
Fixing VMM32 Memory Leak
Over time, real-mode drivers which are added to VMM32, might not be releasing memory .
To see if this is a problem on your system, run MEM /C /P and check the size allocated to VMM32.
It should not be much more that 2K or at least not growing over time.
If it is:
Rename both your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT file
Reboot
Rename them back again
Reboot again
Run MEM /C /P again to note any change is size.
Over time, real-mode drivers which are added to VMM32, might not be releasing memory .
To see if this is a problem on your system, run MEM /C /P and check the size allocated to VMM32.
It should not be much more that 2K or at least not growing over time.
If it is:
Rename both your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT file
Reboot
Rename them back again
Reboot again
Run MEM /C /P again to note any change is size.
Opening a File with Application that is Different than its Registered One
Opening a File with Application that is Different than its Registered One
To open a file with a different program:
Right click a folder while holding down the SHIFT key
This will open the dialog box that includes "Open with" to change what program will open the file
To open a file with a different program:
Right click a folder while holding down the SHIFT key
This will open the dialog box that includes "Open with" to change what program will open the file
Clearing the Documents Folder
Clearing the Documents Folder
To clear the contents of your Documents Folder
Click the Start menu
Point to Setting
Click Taskbar
Click the Start Menu Programs tab
Click Clear.
To clear the contents of your Documents Folder
Click the Start menu
Point to Setting
Click Taskbar
Click the Start Menu Programs tab
Click Clear.
Increasing Disk Performance
Increasing Disk Performance
Ever wonder why Windows 3.1 was noticeably faster than Windows 3.11? It has to do with something called Synchonous Buffer Commits, this tells Windows whether or not to lie to an application and tell the application that it's writing data to the drive when Windows is actually caching the data in memory. With Windows '95 they give you the option to disable this, thus increasing disk intensive application performance but there are some caveats to consider. If you lose power the data in cache will NOT be written to disk this will be BAD so I'd only recommend using this on a machine with an UPS. Well, Here how you do it.
Go to Start \ Settings \ Control Panel \ System \ Performance \ File System \ Troubleshooting
Check the box Disable synchronous buffer commits.
Expect about a 10% speed increase in disk intensive applications.
Ever wonder why Windows 3.1 was noticeably faster than Windows 3.11? It has to do with something called Synchonous Buffer Commits, this tells Windows whether or not to lie to an application and tell the application that it's writing data to the drive when Windows is actually caching the data in memory. With Windows '95 they give you the option to disable this, thus increasing disk intensive application performance but there are some caveats to consider. If you lose power the data in cache will NOT be written to disk this will be BAD so I'd only recommend using this on a machine with an UPS. Well, Here how you do it.
Go to Start \ Settings \ Control Panel \ System \ Performance \ File System \ Troubleshooting
Check the box Disable synchronous buffer commits.
Expect about a 10% speed increase in disk intensive applications.
Increasing Performance
Increasing Performance
This concerns the "Network Server" option ... You already know about the screw up in Win95 release prior to OSR2 but, did you know you can also customize the settings in the registry?
Open Regedit
Go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates"
Add a new key called "Custom".
Then add two new binary values under that key with the names "NameCache" and "PathCache", just as with the other entries.
I would recommend using values somewhere in-between what the standard values are for "Desktop" and "Network Server". The values I have found to be the best compromise are "00 08 00 00" and "30 00 00 00" respectively, your milage may vary. (2048 filenames and 48 pathnames)
Close Regedit
Right click on "My Computer"
Select Properties then the Performance tab.
Select "File System" and you will now find the "Custom" option in the drop down box.
Select it and click on OK then be sure to reboot.
While this doesn't save a lot of memory, at least your name caches aren't using more than they need.
Submitted by CrashMaster
Added 11/19/96
If you have 24 Megs or more of RAM, you can increase your performance
Right Click on My Computer
Select Properties
Click the Performance tab
Click on File System button
Select Network Server with Full Read-ahead Optimization
If you do not see a performance increase, occasionally the NameCache and PathCache values
are written to the registry incorrectly for the Network Server.
To fix the problem:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Server
Make sure the following values are being used:
PathCache=40 00 00 00
NameCache=a9 0a 00 00
To rename the labels Desktop Computer, Mobile or docking system, or Network Server, see Renaming the File System Profiles
This concerns the "Network Server" option ... You already know about the screw up in Win95 release prior to OSR2 but, did you know you can also customize the settings in the registry?
Open Regedit
Go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates"
Add a new key called "Custom".
Then add two new binary values under that key with the names "NameCache" and "PathCache", just as with the other entries.
I would recommend using values somewhere in-between what the standard values are for "Desktop" and "Network Server". The values I have found to be the best compromise are "00 08 00 00" and "30 00 00 00" respectively, your milage may vary. (2048 filenames and 48 pathnames)
Close Regedit
Right click on "My Computer"
Select Properties then the Performance tab.
Select "File System" and you will now find the "Custom" option in the drop down box.
Select it and click on OK then be sure to reboot.
While this doesn't save a lot of memory, at least your name caches aren't using more than they need.
Submitted by CrashMaster
Added 11/19/96
If you have 24 Megs or more of RAM, you can increase your performance
Right Click on My Computer
Select Properties
Click the Performance tab
Click on File System button
Select Network Server with Full Read-ahead Optimization
If you do not see a performance increase, occasionally the NameCache and PathCache values
are written to the registry incorrectly for the Network Server.
To fix the problem:
Start Regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\FS Templates\Server
Make sure the following values are being used:
PathCache=40 00 00 00
NameCache=a9 0a 00 00
To rename the labels Desktop Computer, Mobile or docking system, or Network Server, see Renaming the File System Profiles
Not Loading DriveSpace or DoubleSpace Drivers
Not Loading DriveSpace or DoubleSpace Drivers
Even if you never use DriveSpace or DblSpace, Win95 automatically loads the drivers. While the drivers are not huge, they do consume some resources. To keep Win95 from loading them all you need to do is:
Find the MSDOS.SYS file in the root directory of your boot drive.
Right click on the file, clear the read-only attribute then edit the file.
Add these two lines to the Options section.
Dblspace=0
Drvspace=0
Be sure to save the changes, reset the read-only attribute, then reboot.
This does save a significant amount of memory but more importantly, it will reduce the number of threads running in the background.
Even if you never use DriveSpace or DblSpace, Win95 automatically loads the drivers. While the drivers are not huge, they do consume some resources. To keep Win95 from loading them all you need to do is:
Find the MSDOS.SYS file in the root directory of your boot drive.
Right click on the file, clear the read-only attribute then edit the file.
Add these two lines to the Options section.
Dblspace=0
Drvspace=0
Be sure to save the changes, reset the read-only attribute, then reboot.
This does save a significant amount of memory but more importantly, it will reduce the number of threads running in the background.
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